Clause. a combination of words/phrases, usually structured around a Verb. Main clauses have a finite Verb and can function as complete, independent sentences. Subordinate clauses are either finite or non-finite (depending on the form of the Verb). They have a syntactic function in another clause, and are thus syntactically dependent. They cannot function on their own as complete, independent sentences.

Main clause: I was reading the newspaper.Nothing caught my interest.

Subordinate clause: � that I subscribe to (finite )

� while I was having breakfast (finite) � while having breakfast (non-finite )

simple (consisting of one clause)

compound (consisting of two co-ordinated main clauses)

complex (containing at least one subordinate clause)

Simple: I was reading the newspaper. Compound: I read the newspaper, but nothing caught my interest. Complex: I was reading the newspaper that I subscribe to.

I was reading the newspaper while I was having breakfast.

I was reading the newspaper while having breakfast.

The structure of a complex sentence (main clause)

|-------matrix clause--------| |-------------subordinate clause-------------------| I read in the newspaper that the president is facing further criticism.

Other articles

Sentence Analysis, Clause And Phrase Level?

For my written homework, which is to be handed in before October 15th, one of the tasks is to analyse a sentence in terms of type of sentence, type of clause, clausal pattern, phrases, function within phrases and form class of words.

The sentence is as follows: He found his secretary a reliable typist

I've managed to figure out that it's a simple sentence and that it consists of one main clause. I also think I've figured out the clausal pattern: S, P, dO and oC (correct me if I'm wrong!)

The problem lies in the next area: phrases.

The first constituent [he] is a noun phrase, [found] is a verb phrase, [his secretary] must be a noun phrase, but what about the next one? Is [a reliable typist] an adjective phrase, or is it simply a noun phrase too, like the others?

Moving into the function within phrases area, is the word typist the head of that phrase? And reliable the premodifier?

I know how to deal with many simple, compound and complex sentences, but I found this one a bit hard actually.

Thanks in advance for all help! Regards from Norway

Sep 29 2004 16:21:14

Hello, Zyph, and welcome to the forums.

Congratulations! Your analysis is perfect.

"His secretary" is -not just 'must be'- a noun phrase. It has a determiner (his) and a noun as head (secretary).

Object complements are usually either noun phrases/clauses or adjectival phrases/clauses. You are right that in your sentence the OC is a noun phrase. If you are in doubt, compare it with the DO: both have (almost) the same structure. In the OC, "a" is the determiner, "reliable" (adjective) the premodifier, and "typist" (noun) the head.

If the sentence were, say, "He found his secretary very reliable", then the OC would be "very reliable" (an adjectival phrase), with "very" as premodifier and "reliable" as the head.

Sep 29 2004 16:45:00

Thanks Miriam for your quick responce!

I'm studying English at a Norwegian university, and this forum will certainly be used frequently during my time of study. It's great that there are such sources out on the internet, with helpful and clever people ready to answer your question in no time.

Sep 29 2004 17:58:35

The sentence is interesting for its ambiguity. Another interpretation, admittedly less likely but nevertheless possible, is S P iO dO.

Yes, my first attempt resulted in an SPOO-sentence actually. Ambiguity creates confusion, and I suspect my teacher in choosing that sentence on purpose

Sep 30 2004 02:57:54

Not to mention that ambiguity makes you think! Aren't teachers just awful that way.

Sep 30 2004 06:29:24

But how can you make a tree diagram for this sentence. I think it is a very hard sentence to analyze. Is found a lexical verb. And how can you analyze his secretary. I know it is a noun phrase but what else.

I am so bad at tree diagram at this moment. And I have the exact same homework.

Sep 22 2010 12:48:46

Anonymous Is found a lexical verb? A lexical verb is a verb that's not a modal verb nor an auxiliary verb, and "found" is neither of these, so of course it's a lexical verb! Anonymous how can you analyze his secretary. I don't know what else you need to know about it in order to diagram it. I would say it's the first of two noun phrases in a subordinate structure. Is that what you're looking for?

This page describes substantial changes made to CP since version 7.1 (published in 1993, distributed in North America by The Psychological Corporation). See the CP Information page for a more detailed description of the program and the analyses it performs.

Changes in CP 9.7.0CORPUS

Utterance numbering can be shown for all utterances, all except null responses, or only complete and intelligible utterances.

PROPH

Color highlighting during data entry shows when target and transcription forms disagree and distinguishes codes for omitted vowels and consonants.

Revision of the process analysis for the Hodson Assessment of Phonological Patterns-Third Edition (HAPP-3), based on Hodson (2004).

Default mode for data entry can be changed by pressing space bar.

Changes in CP 9.6.0

A new phonological process analysis for the Hodson Assessment of Phonological Patterns-Third Edition (HAPP-3), based on Hodson (2004).

Revision of the Grunwell (Brief) and Grunwell (Extended) phonological process analyses, based on Grunwell (1987).

Revision of the phonological process analysis for Spanish.

New profile: Word/Process Breakdown shows the phonological processes that were identified in each word in the PROPH data file.

Additional help in coding dialectal forms in the Edit PROPH File module. You can view dialectal variants of any target form, helping to differentiate developmental and dialectal sound changes occurring in the same production.

Error Breakdown in PROPH Profile is modified to show percentage of substitutions, omissions, distortions, and additions. Omission errors are further delineated as those involving singletons, entire clusters, or cluster elements.

CAP

Utterance Level and Discourse Level codes for the Conversational Acts Profile can be entered directly into transcript files. If included, they are read and tabulated automatically by the CAP program, eliminating the need to enter the codes through menu selection.

Changes in CP 9.5.0

Both long (Windows) and short (DOS) filenames are displayed when files are selected. [This feature does not work under Windows 2000/XP.]

Automatic display of first contextual note (from CORPUS file) or first line of file information (from PROPH file) when files are selected

Speakers can be identified by unique letter codes in the transcript text file. These are converted to the standard designations P (for the child, patient, student, etc.) and T (for the therapist, teacher, parent, or other conversational partner of P) when the CORPUS file is created

Both long (Windows) and short (DOS) filenames can be used when creating transcript text files. [This feature does not work under Windows 2000/XP.]

LARSP

New module: Edit LARSP Profile Lets you add or remove LARSP profile tallies from a data file that has been tabulated, thereby correcting errors in the LARSP analysis produced by CP

New module: Look Up Phoneme Mastery shows which phonemes/clusters should be mastered by an American child of a given age and gender, according to data from the Iowa-Nebraska Articulation Norms Project (Smit, Hand, Freilinger, Bernthal, & Bird, 1990)

Improvement of Sound Accuracy Profile to show those phonemes/clusters expected for a child's age and gender, those fully or partially mastered in the sample, and those not mastered

Improved performance in Adjust for Dialect feature of Edit PROPH File module. Transcription forms are scanned by rule for features of either African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Spanish Influenced English (SIE). Dialectal forms not identified by rule scan can be added to variants dictionary

Syllable structure changes are shown as part of the phonological process analysis

Both long (Windows) and short (DOS) filenames can be used when creating PROPH files. [This feature does not work under Windows 2000/XP.]

Changes in CP 9.4.1

CP documents can be printed using the Windows application Txtprint, allowing printing over a local network or with USB printers, and offering formatting options that improve appearance and reduce paper use

CORPUS

support of Spanish language transcripts for the Index Utterances, Utterance Count, and Word Concordance modules.

separate child and adult dictionaries for transcript tagging

DSS

Black English Sentence Scoring (BESS, Nelson, 1998; Nelson & Hyter, 1990), an adaptation of DSS for use with speakers of African American Vernacular English

improved help files, including access to examples that can assist in coding decisions

improved help files that are linked to coding categories

improved utterance search and editing features

option to construct a table showing, for each sentence, the scores received in the 8 grammatical categories, the sentence point category, and the total score (screen shot )

option to create a report showing, for each semantic field, the words classified in that field and the utterances in which those words occurred (screen shot )

Create age interval files option in the Model Sound Changes module lets you illustrate developmental changes in speech development

In the Create PROPH File module you have the option of coding all words in the file for their syntactic word class. CP derives this information from its syntactic parsing routines.

Adjust for dialect in the Edit PROPH File module lets you store information about dialectal or casual speech sound changes and then apply that information to a data file, automatically adjusting the target phonetic forms

new analysis: Sound Accuracy profile shows the number of correct productions, number of target opportunities, and the percentage accuracy for each consonant singleton and cluster; it also indicates whether phoneme mastery has been achieved according to criteria you specify.

new analysis: table shows the percentage of consonants produced correctly for each feature class, tabulated by position (initial, medial, final, total)

data searches for correct and error productions can be specified by phoneme or by feature class

new analysis: Inventory of Vowel Phones (screen shot )

a reorganization of the PROPH profile report that groups together all independent and relational analyses (screen shot )

Changes in CP 9.0.3

expanded help files with key word search

tutorials to help you learn basic program operation

glossary of linguistics terminology available as help file in Main Menu

scrollable displays of profile reports, help files, and other information

additional options in Preferences

file search feature enables you to identify data files containing specific text strings in any or all data locations

a freeware text editor, included with CP, greatly simplifies transcript entry and editing

the GCats parser (Channell, 1997), incorporated into CP, automatically generates grammatical tags that are inserted into CORPUS files as contextual notes - these tags improve the accuracy of all CP modules

words can be automatically coded for length in syllables, allowing comparative analyses of monosyllabic and multisyllabic productions, or for grammatical function, allowing comparison of functor and substantive words

new module: Compare PROPH Files identifies differences in coding and transcription between two files